The one and only album from Newcastle's brilliant burly hardcore thrash mob.
Ex-members of Grace, Ebola, Thirty Seconds Until Armageddon, Generic and One By One.

Hellride
Jinn kick ass, plain and simple. To be totally honest on my first spin of this disc, the music somehow escaped me. I think the problem was I was listening to it in the car and wasn’t getting to pay the best attention at the time. You know the deal; idiot drivers, cell phone keeps ringing, etc. So, I just didn’t get to give these UK madmen their dues. Now that I am fully acquainted with this disc I have to say these guys are a schizophrenic act that sound like the late 90’s Hydrahead roster on crack. Jinn borrow liberally from grind, punk, hardcore, doom, noise-rock and indie to create a hybrid that is all their own. The cool part is that they manage to throw all of this together over the course of 11 songs in just over 21 minutes. The clean opening strum of, “It’s not getting any better” continues to build in volume and intensity until the band unleash their version of surging, post-doom hardcore. The roaring vocals collide violently with murderous twin guitar rage and a dynamic rhythm section that can turn the tide of a song on the stop of a dime. The second half of this track is a whirlwind of grinding fury that doesn’t spare the blast beats in the least. A dense doom chord makes for an appropriate finale to this eclectic nightmare. Bass devastation sets the initial tone for “Damaged” which is one of the many speedier bursts on the album (most of which clock in at barely over a minute) but it still finds a way to pack a lot into a short amount of time. The usage of brief, cleaner chords within the early part of the track provides another calm before the storm of relentless punk, hardcore and grind abuse that continues even faster into the next track, “Song for?” which has nary a moment of peace as the band kick into furious overdrive in a hail of noise/grind bluster. The fluid skull-cracking of “Global Warning” could be easily seen as the album’s centerpiece for its epic length considering the normal running time of Jinn’s regular songs, in addition to the fact that the band throw the literal kitchen sink of time changes at you. They traverse the waters of jittery noise/hardcore and sets their sails for the shores of grind and indie rock too. The dissonant and noticeably less distorted moments of this track lead to a false sense of security in that you think Jinn will settle down their veracity in lieu of adopting their shimmering, melodic tendencies. In reality they are just strapping you in for an unhinged and punked-up drum roll that explodes into a grind heavy conniption that’ll stop you dead in your tracks. The stop and go aggression of “Harvest” rocks hard with a vibe that sounds like Unsane if they were a grind band. The bruised, knuckle-dragging riffs have the distinct hint of noise-rock menace but the band continues the onslaught of blasts and throaty larynx torture that they purveyed from the very first explosion of such insanity. Jinn continue to dazzle you with slight experiments in sound through the rest of the record which flows throughout, “Negative God”; a song that at times adopts a punk meets Motorhead attitude with an emphasis on wailing lead guitar debauchery. This one has an awesome rock n’ roll vibe and hits you in a slightly different manner than all of the preceding tracks. “Drawn Shut” makes use of an annihilating doom swagger that rumbles head on in a cage match with noise-rock while a crowd of grinding, hardcore fans cheer on the bloodshed from the stands. The concise yet epic throes of “Blind Eye” sounds surprisingly depressing and shows the band’s post-doom inflections are very much still intact at this late stage of the record. The song has a main riff that has a bit of a doom vibe in the way that the notes are arranged but the injection of vibrant clean elements adds a whole new dimension to the way that the track unfolds. A double play of grinding, punk/hardcore is what is up next in the form of back to back trailblazers, “We should have done this” and “Micky’s Revenge”. These songs have killer riffs but the band tosses a big middle finger towards experimentation here as they charge ahead with a straight-up grind mentality. With the finality of closer “Vikings Bloody Vikings”, Jinn show a small glimpse of their many sides. This song has elements of sludge tinged rock, grind, punk and pure melody. This is an awesome record despite my initial first impression. Jinn have grown on me in leaps and bounds and I feel that the only reason I didn’t come around the first time was due to the environment of my listening situation. This is some fucking brutal music that still manages to nail groove and melody. The record might blow by pretty damn fast but there is enough meat on the bones of these songs to make it easy to go back for seconds, thirds and beyond. If you dig experimental grind/hardcore that isn’t afraid to toy with a little bit of everything then Jinn are a band well-worth checking out. I can’t find really any information on what the band has done in the past, so I’m not sure if this is their first full-length or if there was material release before this. In any case, this S/T album is a great place to start. This is a pit fight to the death between Hydrahead and Amp-Rep, in the Relapse squared circle!

Scene Point Blank
Although this band shares their name with at least three other groups, this release is pretty solid. The United Kingdom's Jinn brings a little bit of punk and thrash to their metal sound, sounding somewhere between Mind Eraser and At the Gates. It's not too dissimilar from the rise of bands like Isis, in some of its slow, epic parts as well as the artwork. The vocals can be indecipherable, which is par for the course of this genre, it can, however, make it hard to listen to at times. But the album progresses well, bringing in different beats and guitar work throughout to keep you engaged. The recording really benefits the heaviness of their sound as well. Even if this is not innovative enough to make Jinn huge, their intensity and heavy sensibilities definitely make this worth checking out.

Die Shellsuit Die
People find new music in many different ways. They use the radio, MySpace, blogs & other such wonderful mediums to pick up music that they haven’t heard and might like. But why trawl through various MySpace pages, hit & miss blogs & the rubbish Zane Lowe plays when you can simply use the law of averages to your favour? If you like a band that is released on an independent label (Because Majors will pretty much release anything) then why not go to the labels website/MySpace and listen to their other bands? What a wild idea, eh? You see, being released on an indie label is almost like getting a stamp of approval because the guys (Or girls) who run these labels are normally a one/two man/woman band who only really release stuff that they like, ya feel me? So, when a CD arrived through my door with the SuperFi Records stamp of approval right there on the inlay, I was pretty excited. SuperFi Records, basically, don’t release shit bands. Whether it is some mad grind like Narcosis, some clever indie like the Mock Heroic or the just plain brilliant like Snowblood, you can’t really go wrong. So, when Jinn’s self titled release found its way into my CD player it’s fair to say I was extremely disappointed…..…….just kidding!! The simple fact about this record is that there is only one way to listen to it, loud. From start to finish, this CD is relentless, destructive & abrasive. Although this album is pretty consistently heavy from start to finish there is some quite subtle, clever dynamics slipped in there although the dynamic is basically “heavy” & “heavier”. There are some nice transitions from cleaner guitar into the crushing stuff. Whereas a lot of bands rely on riffs to make their songs good and interesting, Jinn don’t. Jinn do bang out some naughty guitar riffs but, to be honest, they are not the sorts of guitar riffs that will blow your mind. In fact, there is nothing particularly special about any of the actual elements of this record. Nothing stands out, nothing makes you go “wow” but the whole feel & sound of the record is what makes it good & is probably why I like this record. The album just comes across as a whole massive wall of noise that fills your ears & head with dirty, crushing sounds. This is definitely a record for fans of Narcosis, Swarm of the Lotus & Bucket Full of Teeth. I’d like to congratulate myself on writing this entire review without making one “Jinn & Tonic” joke…mainly because I couldn’t think of a genuinely funny one…….and I didn’t mention Jin, the Korean guy, from Lost either...